The field of the invention relates generally to power systems, and more particularly, to systems and methods of monitoring a power system power converter.
Telecommunication power plants are designed to maximize reliability. System controllers are used in such power plants to ensure redundancy in installed rectifier capacity for a load at any point in time before performing maintenance tasks. System controllers also equalize the load on each rectifier in a given system. Accuracy of installed capacity at all times is very important to achieve such objectives. At least some known rectifiers are designed to detect and report a variety of failure modes to the system controllers for this purpose. However, it is not possible or economical to detect every failure mode of every part, especially partial failures in various gate drive circuits for switching power devices. For example, a switch in a rectifier may fail and manifest in a non-permanent fault such as under voltage. In reality, this is a permanent failure which prevents reasonable power from being delivered to the load. With no permanent failure detection, the system controller may count this rectifier for installed capacity calculations, which may result in peak charging and a potentially blown fuse and/or decreased system efficiency or reliability.